SIR Harold “Harry” Evans remains one of the great figures of modern journalism. For this reason, and because the kind of campaigning, reporting-based work he stood for is threatened as never before, his autobiography, written as he turned 80, is both gripping and timely.

The book opens with an account of Sir Harry's rise from an upper working class home in Manchester. After an early setback of failing his 11-plus exam, his story is one of relentless ambition and determination. He left school at 16 to become a cub reporter on a local weekly. In love with journalism, he started a newspaper for the 800 men stationed with him in Wiltshire while doing his national service in the RAF.

Returning to civilian life in 1949, Sir Harry attended a lecture by a rather condescending executive (your reviewer's father) from the ineffably superior Manchester Guardian, who grandly informed his audience that it was not possible to explain world events without a knowledge of politics and economics gained from reading the likes of Macaulay and Keynes. Inspired, and against considerable odds, Sir Harry wangled himself a place at Durham University. With a degree came the offer of a job at the Manchester Evening News, then one of the country's most powerful provincial newspapers and, with its eight editions every weekday, one of the most demanding. It was here that Sir Harry acquired his hallmark virtuosity in almost every aspect of newspaper production. From reporting to editing to layout, there was no newsroom job he could not do.

A two-year break travelling America on a Harkness scholarship might have resulted in a career change. But at 32 he returned to England and was offered the editorship of the Darlington-based Northern Echo, a somewhat dated paper that still sold 100,000 copies daily across north-eastern England. Sir Harry speedily re-energised it with a revamped design, sharper reporting and editorials that addressed local issues. But what probably caught the eye of Denis Hamilton, the successful editor of the Sunday Times in London, was Sir Harry's flair for investigative and campaigning journalism. The young editor bravely ran national campaigns in his regional paper when he believed there was a wrong to be righted. His battle to force a reluctant health service to introduce countrywide screening for cervical cancer may have helped save the lives of thousands of women.

Hamilton brought Sir Harry to the Sunday Times and soon after, in 1966, made him his successor. Highly profitable, with a circulation of over a million and a formidable editorial staff, the Sunday Times was a wonderful stage for Sir Harry to perform from. He was also fortunate in his proprietor, the Canadian Lord (Roy) Thomson, who was steadfast in his belief that readers would pay for independent journalism.

Sir Harry quickly founded a full-time investigative unit to expose important scandals and carefully reconstruct major events. He believed teams were the key to investigative work because they enabled journalists to follow many trails (some inevitably false) and deploy a wide range of expertise in often technical material. A team is also likely to be more dispassionate than a single reporter on a mission.

Recalling his 14 years at the Sunday Times, Sir Harry gives compelling accounts of big stories, such as the paper's unmasking of Kim Philby's full damage as a spy; its noble campaign to win decent compensation for the victims of Thalidomide; and its efforts to report what was happening in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles, from the treatment of internees to the shootings on Bloody Sunday. Such stories involved long, costly and wearying challenges to political and legal authority. Writing about the Thalidomide affair, for example, often meant hazarding a jail sentence or a heavy fine for contempt. These were risks that Sir Harry bravely took, changing the law in the process. The paper “had to be ready to commit the resources for a sustained effort,” he says of its lengthy investigations. “No campaign should be ended until it had succeeded—or was proved wrong.” He left his beloved Sunday Times in 1981 after the paper and its daily sister were bought by Rupert Murdoch's News International. Persuaded to take up the editorship of the Times, he soon found himself butting heads with Murdoch executives. But his passion for anti-establishment causes made him a fish out of water there regardless.

Sir Harry then turned his back on English journalism. He went on to make a second career in publishing in America and as a writer of popular history. But he happily admits to playing second fiddle to his much younger and nowadays more famous second wife, Tina Brown.

The book has its faults. Chums are often granted sycophantic epithets (“irrepressibly creative”), which Evans the editor would have rejected. It also leaves readers with a depressing question: is the kind of important, risky, expensive journalism that Sir Harry exemplified still possible? Katharine Graham, a former publisher of the Washington Post, once observed that the best guarantee of first-class journalism is a strong bottom line. But the commodification of news on the internet has meant that this is something few newspapers have. Sir Harry remains optimistic, believing that the potential of the internet outweighs its threat. He suggests that with the right financial model, “we will enter a golden age of journalism.” Readers of this book may well conclude that the golden age of journalism has come and gone.